


Red Shoes and Redder Cheeks

by Alphum



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Rated T for swearing, ballet dancer Keith, latino lance, swimmer Lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8367409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alphum/pseuds/Alphum
Summary: All Lance wants to do is pick up his sister from her dance class. He ends up getting more than he bargained for, like a hot crush on her even hotter teacher.





	

**Author's Note:**

> All the translations are in the end notes. Please feel free to correct my Spanish because I'm running off of what I remember from high school, google translate, an English to Spanish dictionary, and my own special butchery of grammar and tenses!
> 
> I wrote and posted this in like an hour and a half because I couldn't get it out of my head. If you want an idea of how Keith's dancing, youtube "hiplet" because I watched like twenty videos last night.

Lance glared up at the building he was parked in front of. Correction, the building he’d been parked in front of for close to twenty minutes. His sister wasn’t answering his texts, he was hungry, and there really was no other course of action but to go in and get her, he would tell himself later, repeatedly, when asking himself _‘How did I get into this mess?’_

Not knowing of his future self cursing his current self, he heaved himself out of his car and twirled his keys around his finger, eying the stairs upto the main door with displeasure. He was on taper! This wasn’t fair! Why wasn’t there a building crew going ahead of him and building escalators into any building he could possibly have a need to go in? Grumbling, he plodded up the stairs and into the dance studio.

He was greeted by a wave of classical music and a British accent calling across the room. “--nd this is why building up muscles in your ankles and calves is of the utmost importance! Twisting your ankle is no laughing matter, especially for a ballerina who could have done something about it to prevent it from occurring!” Allura was her name, Lance knew that much from Melissa coming home singing her praises. She was tall and tanned, and her white hair was up in a tight bun. For a second, Lance was confused at why she was so tall before he realized she was standing _en pointe_ , beaten blue point shoes leading her to tower over even Lance. “But with diligence and careful training, you can have a marvelous range of motion in your pointe shoes!” Allura emphasized this with a pretty twirl. All of her students were clinging to the bar along the wall with sweat on their foreheads and shakes in their legs as they forced their toes to stay beneath them.

Right, because Melissa was starting pointe training in addition to her regular ballet. He was pretty sure Allura wasn’t the pointe teacher though. From the sound of it, she was busy enough with the regular ballet classes. He slipped through other people waiting to pick up children to get to the edge of the group, where he could see a little better.

“And you can even incorporate other styles into your pointe dancing, although I would caution you to wait a little bit longer than Carrie did. Your first day was a little ambitious for those sorts of moves, darling.” Allura’s voice was directed to a girl, the only student, on the floor, with red eyes and an ice pack on one extended ankle. “Down, ladies.” This comment was punctuated with a collective sigh of relief from the girls at the bar as they fell heavily to heels. “Those sorts of moves are more Keith's style, so I cannot guide you through those. I prefer a far more classical style than Keith does,” she continued, “as I’m sure you can tell. Although I’m sure he would love to demonstrate a more modern pointe style for you.” She laughed, a light tinkling sound that settled loftily around Lance’s head. He was half in love already.

“So first you make me search your entire office for an ACE and then you start offering demonstrations of my skills while I’m gone. I’m not impressed, Allura.” Lance glanced to where the voice had come from, further into the room, and had to force his jaw not to drop. This was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen in his life, and that probably included Lance’s hot professor.

Allura let out another laugh, but it felt flat to Lance’s ears. “You might have to ask nicely, ladies.”

Instantly, the newcomer, Keith, was surrounded by teenage girls pleading variations of “Please Keith!” and “I’ll never forget my scrunchie again if you do, please please please!”

It was Keith’s turn to laugh, and it was _perfect_ , fuck. Quiet, but deep, and his nose scrunched up just the tiniest bit, while a hand was raised to try to hide his smile. Definitely hotter than Lance’s hot processor.

Especially in those pants. He didn’t know what they were, but they were black and tight, clutching his muscled legs as shamelessly as Lance wanted to, stopping below his knees to show bare calves and feet.

“Fine, fine! Just settle along the back wall and start getting ready to go! Allura’s safety talk kept you all late, and I don’t want to deal with angry parents!” Keith shooed them away easily, glancing towards the door and the group of bored parents. His eyes swept the group before landing on Lance. He felt his stomach swoop when they made eye contact, but tried to remain composed and shoot back a smile, but Keith looked away before he could see it. Fuck.

 _“_ Lance! _”_ Melissa squealed and Lance found himself with an armful of sweaty fourteen year old sister. “ _Estas aquí!_ ” She hugged him tightly and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“ _Desde luego!_ ” Lance grinned down at her. “ _Solo estoy esperando por viente añoooooos!_ ” He groans. “ _Tengo hambre!_ ” He picks her up and shakes her until she squeals.

“Taper, taper! Uncle, uncle!”

“Ah, _mierda_!” Lance drops her at the reminder of taper. Conserving his energy, right.

“ _Vamos,_ Lance _! Ven y recibe Allura y Keith!_ ” She tugs at his arm.

“ _Definitivamente_.” He followed with a grin, happy that she was happy. He glanced up to meet the eyes of Keith, again, and managed to pull his smile wider. And happy that he was about to meet the man he felt sure he was going to marry. Never mind that he had been sure he was going to marry Allura until he walked in, and that he had this feeling about four times a week.

“Lance, this is Allura!” Melissa was practically squealing again. “She’s been my ballet teacher for forever now! She’s amazing!”

Allura pinkened prettily, looking unsure how to react as Melissa continued to ramble about how _amazing_ and _fantastica_ she was.

“Nice to finally meet the famous Allura.” Lance extended his right hand as he clamped the left over Melissa’s mouth and caught her in a half-headlock against his side. “You’re practically a legend in the McClain household.” He grinned easily.

Allura shook his hand firmly. “Nice to meet you, Lance, was it?”

“ _Sí, sí!_ ” Melissa shook free of his weak hold. “He’s the best _hermano_ ever! He’s never missed a single dance recital! Not even when he got his wisdom teeth out!”

“Ah yes, I think I do remember you!” Allura clapped her hands together. “You were very… Memorable?” She tried for positivity, smiling brightly.

Lance decided to keep the conversation going, and not dwell on unpleasant details. Like getting his wisdom teeth out, and all the ways he’d managed to embarrass himself. “And Keith, right?” He extended his hand to the man at Allura’s side, who looked momentarily frozen, like a deer in the headlights.

“Yeah.” He didn’t take Lance’s hand, hardly seeming to notice it was there.

Lance let it fall back to his side. “So, you’re going to demonstrate some of the” He waved his hand. “Fancy dancy?”

“Pointe!” Melissa jabbed him.

“Pointe.” Keith corrected him flatly with a small glare. No worries, Lance lived on stink-eyes. They revitalized him like nothing else could. Especially when they were coming from such bright eyes. Keith glanced over at the group of girls assembling along the back wall. “I guess so.”

“The girls would love to see it!” Allura clasped her hands under her pointed chin. “It would be very motivating for them to see some of the broader applications of it! I’ll get your shoes!” She swept away from them, her ballet wrap flaring out behind her.

Melissa looked up at Keith, stars in her little pubescent eyes. Lance was glad he’d grown out of that. Mostly. “What will you dance to? Do you have any routines ready? Have you competed on pointe before?” She started up with a barrage of questions that Lance honestly wanted to hear the answer to, down to every word. He would listen to this man talk forever, if only to revel in the fact that he would get more than three words at a time from him, probably.

“Mel, remember to breathe.” Lance joked. “Give the man some time to think, too.” He glanced up at him to shook him an apologetic look and ended up looking straight into Keith’s eyes. He forgot what he was going to say. If he was going to say anything. He didn’t think he was, but there was always a chance. Lance always had something snappy to, well, snap.

Allura bounded up to them with a wide grin and red shoes, stopping Lance from trying to smoulder at Keith. Thank god. Lance’s smoulder was a slow start. “I’ve got your shoes! I’ll put some music on for you!” She thrust the red shoes at Keith, who fumbled the catch, managing to grab both shoes, but sending a purple thing flopping to the ground from the inside of one of the shoes. Lance stooped before anyone else to pick it up. It was a flexible silicone… thing. It was bright purple and slightly linty.

“Thanks.” Keith snatched it from him, looking anywhere but at Lance, and stalked off to put his shoes on.

“No problem.” Lance said to his back.

“Oh, _asqueroso_!” Melissa groaned, looking at Lance, who had the grossest, soppiest, most lovestruck look on his face. “ _Pensé_ Allura… Ugh!” She towed Lance to the back of the room to stand while Lance watched Keith pull on his red pointe shoes. Carefully sliding them on before winding the red ribbons tightly around his ankle and calf before yanking them into a rough knot. It didn’t even deserve to be called a bow.

Allura was fiddling with the stereo when Keith joined her, walking flat-footed, instead of on his toes. They spoke quietly before Keith took center floor. A hush fell as Allura started speaking, commanding all attention.

“Keith will be dancing _en pointe_ , but adding in some different stylistic choices, primarily those of hip-hop. It’s something I’m still struggling to learn, but I’ll try to keep up!” She pressed play on the iPod in her hand.

Lance let out a muffled cackle at the look on Keith’s face as Shakira blasted the room. Judging from the glare, Keith still heard it.

Allura joined Keith and they both hopped up to their toes. Lance’s laughter died in his throat at the sight of this fucking God before him with his perfectly sculpted calves joining with his pointed feet to extend his leg as—fuck—his thigh muscles worked as he bent at the knees, lowering his ass that had gotten even tighter—

Lance was going to die.

He was sure that Pidge would hack into his death certificate and change the “cause of death” field to “that ass” because— because he was Lance McClain, and he could never deny Hunk’s realization and subsequent blurt of “So you’re an ass man.” at eleventh grade lunch one day. He was an ass man, and this was too much ass on a man for Lance to handle. If only he could handle it.

This wasn’t even getting into how the arch of his back was obscene and should be illegal in at least seventeen countries.

The song ended, Lance was put out of his misery, and Melissa smirked at him, over her grossed-out moment of earlier.

“You okay?” She shoved him with an elbow and Lance fell dramatically against the wall.

“ _Dios mio.”_ He groaned. _“No sé.”_

 _“No mira ahoraaa…”_ Melissa sang under her breath.

Lance looked up to find Keith approaching them, a gleam in his eye and a smirk on his lips. Still on his toes. Fuck. He straightened, aware that the most beautiful person to exist was about to talk to him while Lance was wearing his after-practice shorts and a shirt that had seen better days.

“Was that _fancy dancy_ enough for you?” He inquired, almost tart. His eyes were even brighter with the activity, and Lance tuned out the part of his brain that was wondering if they brightened with every physical activity.

“I didn’t know you could twerk on point.” Lance was proud that it wasn’t a croak.

Keith flushed. “I wasn’t—I would never do something like that in front of my students.” His tone was definitely tart now.

“That’s a shame.” Lance tried for a smirk to match Keith’s. “I bet you’re great at it, even if you are a white boy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith crossed his arms, finally flexing to fall to his heels. And to fall shorter than Lance. Score.

“I _mean,_ the best twerking comes from the Latino community. Maybe you could pick up a few pointers, _querido.”_ The endearment slips out before Lance can remember he’s standing next to his sister. His very Spanish speaking sister.

She slaps her hand over her mouth, eyes huge and sparking and mischievous and fuck. Lance was fucked.

Keith is still flushed and charges ahead before Melissa can butt in. “I’d be tempted to take you up on that, if you looked like you had anything to twerk.” He turns on the spot, somehow hopping back to pointe. This close to Lance, it felt like a critical hit, watching his legs flex and his back arch and his perfectly-twerkable ass tuck just the slightest bit under.

Lance can feel his face flame. He is done for. ‘ _How did I get into this mess?’_ Lance asked himself. He had been devastated. Struck down. Shot through the goddamn heart. And that was before Keith glanced over his shoulder to shoot him one last smirk.

Fuck.

**Author's Note:**

> Taper is basically when swimmers are getting ready for a competition and are trying to conserve as much energy as possible. It's the best excuse to be lazy ever.
> 
> This was basically an excuse for Lance to ogle Keith. Maybe I'll do a follow-up where Keith comes to one of Lance's swim meets? If you guys want...
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://inaweofdiana.tumblr.com/)! Come say hi! :)
> 
> Spanish translations:  
> Estas aquí! -- You're here!
> 
> Desde luego! Solo estoy esperando por viente añoooooos! Tengo hambre! -- Of course! I've only been waiting for twenty yeeeeeears! I'm hungry!
> 
> Mierda -- Shit
> 
> Vamos, Lance! Ven y recibe Allura y Keith! -- Come on, Lance! Come and say hi to Allura and Keith!
> 
> Definitivamente. -- Alright
> 
> Sí, sí! -- Yeah, yeah!  
> Hermano-- Brother
> 
> Oh, asqueroso! ... Pensé Allura… Ugh! -- Oh, gross! ... I thought Allura... Ugh!
> 
> Dios mio. No sé. -- My God. I don't know.
> 
> No mira ahoraaa… -- Don't look nooow...
> 
> Querido -- Sweetheart, darling, desire, love


End file.
